Vote For Your Favorite Design

AMES, Iowa – Iowa State’s football team will have a new game-day uniform and helmet, featuring cardinal and gold colors prominently, beginning in 2008.

Several months ago, the ISU Athletics Department asked for uniform and helmet design concepts from its fans, students, professional designers or anyone else who felt they had a vision of what the Cyclones should wear on gameday. Many individuals submitted concepts and a committee of department and campus officials poured over the ideas, tweaked them and chose three “finalists” for consideration to be the new look for Iowa State football.

"We received lots of terrific concepts,” Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard said. “Although no one design was chosen, our final three options are a compilation or hybrid of several of those suggestions.”

Pollard noted that each option represents a distinct name associated with the university – “Cyclones”, “Iowa State” and “ISU”.

(Clicking on the helmets above will open separate windows for each design showing the helmet, uniform and some descriptive text.)

“It is our goal that the option chosen will allow us to more clearly define our athletics program on a national level,” Pollard said. “These three concepts emerged after thorough discussions with a number of individuals and each of the ideas ties back to our history in its own unique way.”

The Athletics Department will collect input, via online voting, until Friday, Aug. 31. Fans can also vote in person during the department’s annual Cyclone FanFest in the Bergstrom Indoor Practice Facility (1-3 p.m.) on Sunday, Aug. 19. The vote of the fans is a factor that will be weighed in the final decision. The athletics department will announce its final choice later this fall so that production schedules can be met for the 2008 season.

“Asking for input from our fan base is an important part of the design process,” Head Coach Gene Chizik said. “In a political year, you might compare this to a straw poll.”

When the design contest was announced last spring, Chizik and Pollard said that a return to the school’s colors – cardinal and gold – was critical. In researching the history of Iowa State’s two primary colors, the actual colors have varied on gameday uniforms from year to year.

“The true cardinal and gold colors are richer than what we presently wear,” Chizik said. “In looking at the throwback uniforms we’re wearing this fall, I couldn’t help but notice how much our color had changed over the years. The darker colors are much classier and more dramatic.”

In addition, the white helmet is a first in Cyclone history. The light background color will make the cardinal and gold stand out as the helmet icon and that was of critical importance.

The “ISU” mark has the most familiarity, “Cyclones” is the most distinguishable since Iowa State is the only Division 1A school in the nation with that nickname and “Iowa State” brands our school as the state school.

“Making a conscious effort to review our historical roots in terms of uniform colors and brand concepts is most appropriate during the celebratory year of the school’s 150th birthday,” Pollard said. “This initiative ties in nicely with the sesquicentennial for Iowa State University.

Remember to vote often and encourage others to vote. As final decision making time nears, we want your sincere feedback. If you would like to offer additional comments for our consideration, you can do so in our feedback section (link at the top of the page).